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Message: <blockquote data-quote="(un)reason" data-source="post: 9250888" data-attributes="member: 27780">Dungeon/Polyhedron 94/153: Sep/Oct 2002part 5/10Spiral of Manzessine: Since Chris Perkins became a bit too busy with wrangling the Star Wars licence, it seems that David Noonan has become the new go-to guy for writing tie-ins to new books. This time it’s City of the Spider-Queen that gets a whole new area that is designed to synergise with the material in the book, but can also be used standalone as well. While on an extended journey through the underdark, the PC’s find their route blocked by a recent cave-in. Unfortunately, this has also blocked the supplies to and from a nearby prison where mind flayers & drow send their worst criminals. (at least, the ones they want to keep alive for whatever reason) They’re using some captives to dig out the rubble. (after all, they’ll all starve anyway if they don’t) Unless the PC’s turn around and go back the way they came (and hey, you could easily put another cave-in back there as well) they’re going to have to engage with the prison and it’s inhabitants in one way or another. Of course, the guards won’t be happy about some rando adventurers wandering through their turf, while the prisoners will use any opportunity to revolt and escape. So this is one of the few D&D adventures involving a literal dungeon, and one designed to imprison high level monsters with lots of magical powers at that. In addition to the default scenario where they simply stumble upon it the DM could also create one where the PC’s are given a mission to break a specific creature out or shut the place down altogether by some patron with a more complex agenda. It’s an interesting demonstration of how you create a dungeon full of traps & guards that are primarily designed to keep the occupants in rather than intruders out, but it is very 3e specific in terms of the powers the monsters have and the countermeasures used to keep them from escaping despite that. So it’s definitely quite a decent adventure that’s usable in multiple ways and could possibly be visited several times in a campaign, but it’s one of the hardest to convert to other editions as you’d have to completely redo the math and doublecheck the interactions of all the spells & powers involved to make sure it still worked as intended, some of which might not even have equivalents. But then again, the official writers want you to buy their new stuff, not keep playing old editions so that’s also things working as intended.Nodwick once again has to deal with Yeagar being horny while in imminent peril. Maps of Mystery is a double bill this time, although both are underground. First is a ship tethered in an underground river, blocked from going in one direction by a bridge. Getting it out to sail the seas may prove tricky, depending on what’s outside the bounds of the map in your adventure. Second is a traditional gridded dungeon-temple, with lots of little rooms to put monsters in and a few big ones perfect for carrying out dramatic rituals, which hopefully the PC’s will reach just in time to foil. Both seem well up to the usual standards of this series.</blockquote>

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